Covid-19 roundup: No­vavax's man­u­fac­tur­ing woes near­ing an end?; FDA re­jects coro­n­avirus drug in NIH tri­al

The US gov­ern­ment’s $1.8 bil­lion in­vest­ment in­to No­vavax’s Covid-19 vac­cine may soon pay off as the com­pa­ny float­ed some pos­i­tive com­ments around the is­sues sur­round­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing of its re­com­bi­nant pro­tein vac­cine, which could be added ear­ly next year to the world’s ar­se­nal of shots.

The com­pa­ny has strug­gled with its vac­cine can­di­date’s po­ten­cy and pu­ri­ty, push­ing back the tim­ing of sub­mit­ting its ap­pli­ca­tion to the FDA all sum­mer, and in June the US gov­ern­ment had to steer No­vavax, in­struct­ing the com­pa­ny to pri­or­i­tize align­ment with the FDA on its an­a­lyt­ic meth­ods be­fore con­duct­ing ad­di­tion­al US man­u­fac­tur­ing, and “fur­ther in­di­cat­ed that the US gov­ern­ment will not fund ad­di­tion­al US man­u­fac­tur­ing un­til such agree­ment has been made,” the com­pa­ny said.

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